The mafia emerged between 1812 and 1875, anchored by dated evidence.

Evidence

Second, Franchetti’s study itself can be taken as evidence. The very existence of his theory implies that the elements required to construct it were already present when he visited Sicily in 1875. The earliest date, therefore, at which the mafia might be said to have come into being is 1812, the year when feudalism began to be dismantled in Sicily, and the latest 1875, the year of Franchetti’s journey. In 1838, however, in a famous report, Pietro Calà Ulloa, procurator general at Trapani, was the first to give evidence of a Homo mafioso in the making in several towns of western Sicily (Pezzino 1987: 909-910). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 246

Categorization

• XREF: Gives a concrete falsifiable dating window for the mafia’s emergence, useful anchor for testing when private-protection markets actually form relative to state weakness.